


sleepover

by skybelow



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bisexual Nancy Wheeler, F/F, Fluff, Gay Panic, Mutual Pining, Pining, robin is just dumb as hell, steve comforts robin in her gay panic, useless lesbian robin buckley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 19:50:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19893397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skybelow/pseuds/skybelow
Summary: Even when you're next to meIt's not the way I'm picturing, noBut at least I've got you in my head





	sleepover

Robin’s heart fluttered when Nancy walked into the video store. “Hey, Nance,” she got out successfully. She was getting better at keeping her shit together around her. 

“Hi, Robin! I was grabbing coffee, and thought you might want some. There’s some pastries in here, too,” she said, setting a bag and two cups onto the counter. “And some napkins,” she added. 

Steve walked out from the back room and joined them at the front of the store, “What? Nothing for me?”

Nancy shrugged, “I thought you were babysitting.” Robin started laughing and choked on her coffee. 

“I’m not a babysitter!” He looked back and forth between the two of them. Between what Nancy had told Robin about Steve and what Robin had taught Nancy about harassing Steve, he hadn’t stood a chance since the two of them became friends. Robin was still coughing. “It wasn’t funny,” he muttered. 

Robin finally took a breath, “Come on, let’s head to the back.” She grabbed the bag and one of the cups and started leading Nancy to the door Steve had walked out of. 

Steve pouted up at the register while he listened to the two of them talking and giggling from the back. He would’ve joined them, but Nancy made it clear he wasn’t invited, and Keith had decided to start doing random check ins whenever he wasn’t working to make sure that Steve and Robin were actually doing their job. 

Finally, they came back out and Robin walked Nancy to the front door. “I’ll give you a call when I get off tonight.” 

“Alright, I’ll see you then,” Nancy grinned and tucked her hair behind her ear before heading out the door. 

“Another sleepover?” Steve asked, his hands resting on his chin with his elbows propped up on the counter. 

“Yeah, so?” Robin asked, crossing her arms and glancing back out the window at Nancy. 

“And you still haven’t told her?” 

“It hasn’t come up.” 

“Don’t girls talk about boys at sleepovers? I feel like it would’ve come up by now.”

She shrugged, “Not since she and Jonathan broke up, and it’s not like she even said much about that. You probably know more from your network of child spies than I do.” 

Steve nodded. He hadn’t mentioned it to her, but when it happened, Jonathan had told Will, who told El, who told Max, who told Lucas, who told Dustin, who told him. He knew about it before Nancy’s own brother did.

“What are you looking at, dingus?” she snapped her fingers in front of his face. He hadn’t realized he was staring off. 

“That’s not the point. The point is-”   
“The point is that everything’s fine!”

“So...what? You’re just going to silently pine after her forever, and not even let her know you like girls?” 

“Yes!”

Steve buried his face in his hands. 

* * *

Robin’s heart was racing and her palms were sweaty. She knew Nancy would be here any second now. This happened every time she came to sleep over, and each time she got just as nervous as the first time. She heard Nancy’s car pull up and was at the front door before the bell rang. Two deep breaths - just to make it seem like she was upstairs and not waiting right here for Nancy the entire time - and she pulled open the door. Nancy’s face lit up when she saw Robin, and she felt a rush of adrenaline through her whole body. 

* * *

Robin remembered the first time Nancy Wheeler gave her that feeling on the night of the battle of Starcourt Mall. She figured it was just another boost of the adrenaline she had been running on since they fell down that elevator combined with the heart to heart she and Steve had in the bathroom. Next, it was the time that Nancy first came in to the video store to hang out. She actually thought Nancy was there for Steve and had walked away to find him as soon as she stepped inside. Then, it was that first day they went to the pool together, changing in the locker room side by side. Her skin had looked so soft, and she didn’t actually  _ see _ anything, but the idea of her and Nancy getting undressed together had left her head spinning. 

Then, Nancy had invited her over for a sleepover. Robin hadn’t been to sleepover since elementary school, and back then, it didn’t matter that she liked girls. This was different. Especially when she realized much too late that there weren’t any sleeping bags involved, just the two of them in a bed together. Once again, she and Nancy were undressing in the same room, and when she realized she could catch a glimpse of Nancy in the mirror, she had to go to the bathroom and talk herself into pulling her shit together and not leaving right then and there. She wanted to be Nancy’s friend. Robin was afraid to even breathe too deeply and spent the entire night stiff as a board so that she wouldn’t accidentally touch Nancy. It worked until Robin woke up to find that Nancy had rolled over to her side of the bed and was snuggled up against her. After that, she definitely couldn’t fall back asleep. The next morning she told Nancy that yes, she slept great and yes, she would love to do this again sometime. Over pancakes, she was sure that it was all written on her face, and everyone knew what had happened last night and that she had feelings for Nancy, but no one said anything, not even Nancy.

Steve was always there to listen to the latest Nancy developments and to talk Robin down when she got too worked up. She would rush into the store panicking because Nancy held her hand, and he would convince her that everything was going to be okay. His advice was all great, even if it felt a little weird for him to be giving Robin tips on how not to let Nancy Wheeler break your heart, and he was a great listener. But he didn’t seem to understand the consequences of telling Nancy the truth. Robin and Nancy were each other’s only girl friends. She’d rather be Nancy’s girlfriend, but that wasn’t an option. She figured it was better they just be friends than be nothing, even if it broke her heart a little every time they were together.

* * *

Robin led Nancy upstairs to put her stuff down in the bedroom, even though she knew the way by heart now. “I brought home another cheesy movie for us to watch,” Robin said. Nancy loved the most dramatic, cliche teen movies. 

“Awesome! I’m glad you’re willing to set aside your ‘refined taste’ for me.” 

_ Oh, have I got a taste for you _ , Robin thought before mentally slapping herself out of it. “Anything for you, Nance.” 

They made some popcorn, and put on  _ Footloose _ . Their hands touched at one point and Nancy just let out a small laugh while Robin tried not to let her face burn red. She didn’t want her life to turn into a cheesy cliche, but maybe Nancy would like that. Not that there were really movies about two girls falling in love. 

Nancy was completely into the movie, and Robin was into watching Nancy watch the movie. After the final dance scene, Nancy moved their empty popcorn bowl to the table and said, “Let’s dance!”

“What?” Robin said, trying to process what was happening. 

“Yeah, come on! Didn’t this make you want to dance? I’ll just rewind it to the start of the song,” she reached for the remote, but Robin beat her to it. 

“Nope. No dancing.” 

She rolled her eyes with a smile. “Please? We don’t have to do what they’re doing.” 

“Nope. I’m not dancing,” Robin said. Nancy pouted her lip just long enough for Robin to let her guard down before lunging at her for the remote. “What are you doing?” 

“I’m Kevin Bacon, and you’re Elmore City. I’m gonna teach you that dancing is fun!” 

Robin panicked with the feeling of Nancy leaning on top of her and the softness of the couch beneath her, so she rolled onto the floor, hoping to lose Nancy in the process. What she wasn’t expecting was Nancy to come down with her, then sit on top of her, straddling her hips, leaning down to try to grab the remote. She forgot how to breathe and she had never been more aware of the entire area around hips, how Nancy was resting just enough weight on her to feel pressure, but was careful not to crush her, how warm her body was against hers. 

She still had a death grip on the remote, and when Nancy gave it a tug, her hips grinded against hers ever so slightly. Robin was so focused on how close Nancy’s face got to hers that she 

forgot she was even holding the remote or how they got here in the first place. She felt it slip from her fingers and the two of them stayed frozen like that for a moment, faces inches apart, before Nancy finally broke the silence and said, “Let’s dance.” 

She pulled Robin to her feet, and two of them started dancing awkwardly to the music. “Weren’t you supposed to be a cool party girl?” Robin asked Nancy. 

“Weren’t you supposed to have a sense of rhythm, band girl?” she shot back with a smirk. 

Robin smiled. Everything felt so natural with her, and that was why it hurt so much that she could never completely let her walls down around her. She was thinking about how she wanted to wrap her arms around her and pull her in close when Nancy reached out and grabbed her hands.  _ Don’t stiffen up, don’t stiffen up. Just relax _ , she told herself. They were no less awkward and clumsy, but now they were connected. Nancy took turns twirling Robin and twirling herself under Robin’s arm, moving them back and forth more or less to the rhythm of the music. 

Robin’s mind was racing. What if her hands got sweaty? What did this mean? This was perfectly normal for two girls to be doing. Just two completely straight girls, dancing together, even as the music playing from the VHS faded out and they were still holding hands, their bodies much closer now than before. Nancy looked up into Robin’s eyes, breathing heavily, and she could’ve sworn that her eyes flickered down to her lips before she stepped away. 

“It’s getting late. Do you mind if I shower first?” 

Robin shook her head. She couldn’t get any words to come out. 

“Cool,” Nancy said, brushing Robin as she walked past her to go upstairs. 

* * *

“Hold on, Robin, slow down. All of this just happened, and she’s still at your house right now?”

“Yes. She’s in the shower. What do I do when she comes out?” 

“Just act normal,” Steve said. Robin panicked over Nancy a lot, but never to the extent that she called him to ask for advice while she was still with her. 

“I don’t know how to do that.” She heard Steve sigh. “What if she tries to kiss me?” 

“Isn’t that what you want?” 

“Yes. No. I don’t know!” Robin knew Steve was running his hand through his hair. “Look, I know this is probably just all in my head, and it’s nothing. So it’s fine. Everything’s fine. Girls hold hands all the time, right? You told me that once. Girls do it, guys don’t. It’s casual. It’s fine.”

“Robin, for the love of God, take a breath,” Steve said. “You’re going to be fine. I dated Nancy, and-” 

“Unsuccessfully.”

Steve threw his hand up in the air, even though she couldn’t see it. She was begging him for advice and was still taking shots at him, “Listen. Nancy’s as straight as I am. If you think it’s nothing, it’s probably nothing, alright? Now I said I was over her, and I’m over her, but if you could avoid reminding me of-” 

Nancy came out of the bathroom and Robin slammed down the phone. 

“Who was that?” 

“Just Steve. He felt a little left out.” 

Nancy laughed, “Of course he does.” 

Robin rushed to go shower and come back as soon as possible. When she came back she crawled into bed with Nancy, who she thought was asleep, and turned out the light. Once she had settled in, she rolled over to face Robin. 

“Hey, Robin?” she whispered. 

“Yeah?” she whispered back. 

“You don’t have feelings for Steve or anything, do you?” Oh God. This was happening. It was all her fault for saying that they  _ never _ talked about boys at their sleepovers. “You don’t have to answer if it’s awkward, sorry.” 

Robin hadn’t realized how long she was taking and reached out to stop Nancy from rolling back over. “No! No, it’s fine. He’s great and all, but we’re just friends. He’s not really my type,” as soon as she said the words she was afraid Nancy would know what they meant, and she’d be out the front door driving home in the middle of the night. Instead she just made a small noise that Robin took as acknowledgement. “Do...do you have feelings for Steve? Again, I mean.” 

Nancy let out a small laugh, and Robin had no idea what that meant. Eventually she said, “No, I don’t. And I don’t know if I really had feelings for him the first time, either. Like, the physical stuff was good, but we just never really connected, you know?” 

“Yeah, I know what you’re saying.” Robin definitely did not know what Nancy was saying. 

“He turned out to be a really good guy, but I guess he’s just not really my type either.” Nancy adjusted and was slightly closer than she was before. Robin pretended not to notice. 

“Jonathan was more your type then?” Steve and Jonathan were pretty different people. It would make sense for Nancy’s type to just be a different type of guy instead of no guy at all. 

“You could say that. I definitely like someone who’s smart.” Robin laughed. “Someone who takes things seriously, but can still be fun, you know?” Robin nodded. “Someone I can talk to about everything and never worry if I sound crazy or I’m being judged.” 

“That sounds like the perfect fit for you.” She really hadn’t interacted with Jonathan enough to know him, but based on this description, she was starting to wonder why they had broken up. 

Nancy was silent for a moment. “Does it?” she asked, so quiet Robin could barely hear her. 

“Yeah, Nance. You deserve someone that’s all that, and more. Someone that loves you and wants what’s best for you, always.” 

“Yeah?” Nancy moved closer to Robin again, and suddenly she realized that this was about her.

_ She _ was Nancy’s type.  _ Oh God. _

This was just like when she came out to Steve, but so much worse. 

Nancy froze up, and Robin realized she wasn’t talking. “Yeah. You do.”

“What-what’s your type, then?” she asked Robin. 

“Someone with a good sense of humor, who can always get me to laugh when I get too serious. Someone clever, and good at solving problems. Someone who’s an absolute badass, and not afraid to stand up for herself.” She realized she used a pronoun, but Nancy didn’t seem bothered, so she continued, even as her voice started to catch in her throat, “Someone who does small things to let me know they were thinking of me, like bringing me coffee at work.” 

This time, when Nancy moved closer to Robin, she also moved and met her in the middle of the bed. Her hand went to Nancy’s cheek as she felt Nancy’s hand on her waist, and before Robin could stop to think about it, Nancy’s lips pressed against hers, and her legs tangled up in hers. She tried to stay calm and follow Nancy’s lead, kissing her soft lips the way she had dreamed about for months now, overwhelmed by the sensation of her body pressed against hers. Robin had never done this before, and was scared if she stopped, it would never happen again. 

Nancy pulled away first, resting her forehead against Robin’s as they both tried to catch their breath. Robin gently traced her fingertips up and down Nancy’s back. “My type is girls, by the way,” she said. She then realized that was probably obvious by now. 

“I could tell,” Nancy smiled, looking into her eyes. 

“But Steve said you were straight,” Robin said. 

Nancy laughed, running her thumb across her cheek. “I thought if anyone knew Steve was dumb as hell, it would be you.” 


End file.
